Abstract
The author started a niche biotech company in 1985 called Flexcell® to distribute an enabling technology, mechanobiology devices, to the field. He was the first University of North Carolina faculty member to start a company and stay with it as he pursued his career in academics. That was an unpopular route at that time, but a path he was driven to navigate. Those interests, merged with his training, led to the design and manufacture of mechanobiology devices such as the Flexercell® Strain Unit and the BioFlex® flexible bottom culture plates to study fundamental responses of cells to strain. Principles in these devices were also incorporated into bioreactors for tissue engineering, which are standard in the marketplace today. In this article, the major roadblocks will be chronicled that were overcome to help build the field of mechanobiology and create a small biotechnology company. Through example, the author’s formula for achieving milestones will be discussed including, the DRIVE it takes to get there [“DRIVE”: Determination (Confidence), Research and Development (R&D) and Risk-Taking, Innovation (Imagination) and Intellectual Property, achieving Victory, and Enterprise].
Highlights
The author grew up in McKeesport, PA right outside Pittsburgh, a hub of US industry, especially steel making in those days
Ingots of red hot steel would stand like fiery soldiers against the background of the blast furnaces, rails and freight cars in the switching yard just off Lyle Blvd
You would wait for 20 min while the freight cars rolled by with their cargoes of coke, Address correspondence to Albert J
Summary
The author learned automation from his postdoctoral mentor, Jerry Mechanic, who built the first flow-through scintillation counter using a Beckman counter and stop-flow technique to quantitate collagen crosslinks in matrix. This was prior to the digital age, and strictly analog. Elliot reviewed the current software, and in a marathon of coding, knocked out our new program (FX4K) He maintained that a more important contribution to the success of this generation Flexercell Strain Unit was codifying the granularity in the hardware to understand the limits that one could achieve in the system calibration. The most important changes occurred with software updates to control the pressure transducers, the invention and use of addressable, proportional valves (vs nominally open or closed valves) and the use of wireless technology and an internet connection All these new hardware components required more than patches to the program and forced a more modular design to the software architecture to accommodate future changes
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